Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Alison Bechdel depicts herself as an avid reader, and both of her parents were English teachers, so books were a part of her everyday life while growing up. In Fun Home, books and literature are multivalent symbols. The exchange of books in Fun Home serves as a symbolic (if inadequate) gesture of affection in place of actual emotional intimacy. Alison and her father exchange and discuss books repeatedly throughout her young adulthood. Bruce also gives books to the male students he grooms for sex and compared Helen’s writing to James Joyce in their love letters.

Books are also sites of solitary self-identification. Alison discovers her homosexuality by reading books by, for, and about queer women. As a child, she also identifies her own OCD by reading Dr. Spock books about childrearing. In both cases, Alison relies upon external sources to identify intimate details about herself. Her own experiences are mirrored back at her, validating her experiences. This process emphasizes her feelings of isolation and lack of mentorship. The process of self-identification through textual resources is also similar to the allusions she draws between her family relationships and those of literary characters.

Quotations and passages from classic literature are built into the structure of Fun Home.